FOOLISH FEEAK OF AN ENGLISHMAN. 329 



up a sham fight in our honour, forming sides and using 

 Winchester rifles and knives. The fighting-ground was in the 

 centre of the Bannock camp, a circle about a hundred and fifty 

 yards in diameter ; and here the fight was so furious and they 

 got so excited that one might very easily have fancied it real. 

 They charged one another, yelling their war-whoop, firing in 

 the air as they came on, and then closed and wrestled on 

 horseback, showing us some very fine riding ; and the horses 

 seemed to enter into the spirit of the thing quite as much as 

 their riders. Most of them rode bare-backed and yet clung as 

 if glued on, one of them being every now and then taken from 

 his horse and carried off, when he was supposed to be scalped 

 and out of the fight. It lasted about an hour, and no one 

 seemed a bit the worse for it, though there were some bad falls 

 and some very hard knocks given. 



I went to the ranche and found Bowles and Reed at home, 

 and for a wonder sober, so I stayed and had a long talk, and 

 Reed told me of a very foolish thing which had been done by 

 an Englishman the previous year on this spot. It seems that 

 early in the spring the great chief of the Crows, " White 

 Horse," had died, and, according to the custom of the tribe, 

 he had been doubled up and put in a box, which had been 

 placed on a stage close to the stockade, the only departure from 

 the usual custom being in this case the use of a box, the bodies 

 usually being merely wrapped in blankets. An Englishman 

 passed through the valley during the autumn, and tried to buy 

 the head of the chief as a curiosity ; but of course the Indians 

 were horrified at the idea, and refused at once, putting a guard 

 on the grave. In some way the Englishman managed to elude 

 the guard and steal the head, going off at once to Benton, 



